In the absence of a strong identity of their own, Canadians reacted to America’s shift to the right by shifting further to the left. The irony of the situation is that, in order to affirm their right to be their own country, they embraced an ideology that does not see the concept of “a country” as meaningful:
The only “anti-American” mode that Canadians can conceive is to shift left – i.e., a “nationalism” that ultimately coincides with the anti-nationalist trajectory of advanced liberalism.
https://www.postliberalorder.com/p/make-canada-conservative-again
Adolescents start the journey of becoming their own selves by rejecting the example of their parents. It’s a necessary stage in their journey towards adulthood but it’s not adulthood. They will only become adults when they make their own decisions without using their parents as a starting point.
Canadian national identity is still in this adolescent stage of confusing independence with what in reality is complete thralldom. There has never been a situation of US citizens making political decisions based on anything that happens in Canada. In this state of self-inflicted inequality, Canadian lamentations that Americans don’t take them seriously as a nation sound like a teenager’s pouting that mom and dad don’t respect him as a fully autonomous individual.
Clarissa's Blog 
I have so far refrained from giving an opinion out of respect for you and your Canadian readers. However, when some time ago I heard then Prime Minister Trudeau say “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,” and that he saw Canada as “the first post-national state”, I couldn’t help thinking that there wasn’t much of a future for such a country.
A place where an ever-decreasing native population is forced to co-habit with ever-growing numbers of people coming from all over the world who maintain very firm loyalties to their own countries and cultures through generations, which is now feasible thanks to technology, can never hope to become a nation. In this respect Trudeau was absolutely right to see Canada as the first post-national state.
Not that we in Europe are faring much better. It is with a heavy heart that I observe the ending of Western European civilisation: it is crumbling away, one pebble at the time, slowly but surely, to give way to whatever it is that will take its place. Oh well, I suppose everything has its end: it’s been a long time coming (the beginning of the end was World War One) and now it is our turn. Good luck to those who stay!
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Absolutely, and it’s particularly stunning to see Canadians try to defend their nationhood by voting for a party that explicitly and repeatedly rejected the idea of Canadian nationhood. But the reason is exactly this: no political force in Canada can offer a defense of the nation or even a definition of what it is. And there’s nobody in the public life of the entire country with the intellect and the knowledge even just to explain it to people. Such poverty of the public discourse. Such utter vapidity of the intellectual life.
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“…no political force in Canada…”
Hmmm, I don’t know, prior to the election “Presto”, aka Preston Manning, was publicly warning Canadians about the danger of the Liberal penchant for stampeding the public using apocalyptic fears like the covid pandemic, dystopic climate warming, and Trump’s bullying threats ;-D
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Nah, both of the Trudeaus were trust fund babies that never grew up. Pierre was a fascist that detested both democracy and les maudits Anglais, supporting the break up of the bonds of our country. Many of the youth of the Catholic French speaking elites of the 20’s and 30’s strongly supported Franco, Mussolini, and Petain, and were strongly anti-semites ignoring, if not supporting, the Nazi atrocities. Some French speaking Canadian regiments fought bravely in WW2, Pierre was not there.
Like his purported father, Justin never had a real job, and never grew up. Unless one considers the continuing dismantling of the country as a job. But then perhaps he never actually considered our country to be a nation ;-D
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LOL, that was intended to be a reply to Avi ;-D
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Those Canadians that have a poor or negative sense of national identity tend to swing Left. On the other hand, we had the patriots of the Truckers Protest who scared the left wingers out of their wits. How dare they wave the flag!
My personal sense of Canadian identity is both practical and positive. Canada is the Canadian people (yes, I know that is a tautology). We have a history of great accomplishments and are capable of even more. We are not better or worse than other peoples, we are who we are. That our people includes those who would destroy us with their foolish ideology is our tragedy and like all tragedies it has destructive pride at its heart.
The Canadian experiment may fail, there is plenty of ammunition for an epic tragedy.
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Yes. and as tens of thousands stood in the snow and cold to encourage the truckers, “Brave Prime Minister Justin ran away.
Bravely ran away, away!
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Prime Minister Justin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Prime Minister Justin!” *
*courtesy from Monty Python and the Holy Grail
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I dont think anyone in SA would change their vote due to Trump or any other foreign leader.
The current situation does give an idea about the government’s priorities though. They do seem to be more willing to back down on supporting Russia than Palestine.
https://dailyfriend.co.za/2025/04/30/the-zelensky-visit-engineering-backdowns/
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